WORDS FOR VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS
OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,
ABUSE, AND TRAUMA

Friday, March 13, 2015

LACK OF SLEEP

If you go day after day, week after week, not getting enough
sleep, the toll it will take on you can be greater than you realize. Lack of
sleep can clog up your ability to think clearly, and can make you feel more raw
and sensitive emotionally. The effects tend to be cumulative, so that the
longer you've been having trouble getting enough rest, the greater the impact
on your life may be. Some people report starting to have depression,
hopelessness, or even a sense that they are losing their minds. You can start
to just plain feel shaky, physically and mentally.

So if you
feel as though you're falling apart, one possibility is that you just need to
sleep.

Being
involved in a destructive relationship can make sleep hard to come by. The
stress and emotional pain of being mistreated can keep you awake. Your worries
about what your partner will do next can do the same. Maybe sometimes -- or often
-- he doesn't let you sleep,
either to punish you about something he's angry about or as a way to force you
to have sex with him. When a man causes sleep deprivation in his partner, he is
actually committing one of the more serious forms of physical abuse -- yes,
sleep deprivation is a form of physical
abuse --
but the depth of damage he can do in these ways is often not
recognized.

If you have
young children, that adds a lot of additional challenges to getting sleep,
especially if your partner isn't carrying his weight about sharing the times of
getting out of bed to attend to a child in need.

Keep some
notes about how much sleep you get, and track your rest patterns over a period
of weeks. Putting down on paper what is going on can help you to assess whether
lack of sleep is actually one of the major contributors to emotional and
physical struggles you are having.

(This post is based on an entry from Lundy's forthcoming book "Daily Wisdom for Why Does He Do That?: Encouragement for Women Involved with Angry and Controlling Men", which will be released by Berkley Books (Penguin) on April 7, 2015.)

20 comments:

My husband would often do this. I remember having a newborn and a 16 month old and being woken up at 3 am to discuss whatever wrong I committed that needed to be addressed. Several times I woke up because he had punched a wall or our headboard. It was terrifying to go to bed at night. It wasn't until we separated that I realized this was a form of abuse.

My abusive husband up and quit his job, lost our home that I had put the down payment on and made the payments on for years and made me have to move to another state into a house that his parents bought - or else I would be homeless. I was working in the medical field and did not find out that the ergonomics of what I did had caused me to slowly injur my back until I needed a large portion of my spine fused. The surgery was done very poorly and wrong. My surgeon actually told me when he removed all of the way way too long screws(of course he would not put it in writing) needless to say I had lost a great paying career, my husband had managed to con away my inheritance and life's savings. So, now I am left penniless with his mom making sure that her son takes every penny from my disability money, she even told him that I did not need to go to the doctor or get my medication. So, now I have to live in my abusive and enabling mother in laws house with her and my husband threatening to kick me out on the street. Even if he beat me up, if I called the Police, she would kick me out on the street. And I payed for every piece of furniture in the house. I want to educate young women that you never know what the person that you are marrying can be like or turn into and for them to legally protect everything that they worked for. Due to my medical problems of pain and an immune deficiency disease - and him taking every penny- I became trapped. I cannot even go into my bed at night and know if I will have peace or be screamed at. I miss my own bedroom. But, the main thing is to educate young women, so that they will never end up trapped. I could have bought and paid for my own condo - and had a place to go to. Maybe they can't do that, but they can protect themselves.

here is one way to help young women and to move out of a miserable situation (see links below) I met a retired woman who goes from resort to resort, or camp to camp to work --year round...she loves it! sometimes she even gets free housing --she said their are job directories for all kinds of seasonal jobs... If it were me in your situation, I would take a job that is not physically demanding (even companion jobs --like my mom did when her husband died and left her nothing --or one of the camping/resort jobs--I would sell all my funiture and stuff on craigs list--on on a plane train or bus and never look back! I pray find a way to leave soon! (what ever benefit you have were you are currently living is not worth it from your message) https://www.campstaff.com/ also search for: "jobs at resorts and campgrounds"

When our daughter was a baby I stayed up with her and he'd sleep. The few times he did stay up with her he'd wake me up after I got a small nap screaming and yelling. When she was older and I had to take her and my oldest to school in the morning he'd keep me up the night before watching tv shows and movies with him all night, then if I tried to nap while the were in school he'd call me lazy.

hi dr. bancroft - i just read your book and found myself watching a reality show about married couples where the signs of an abusive husband came out. to my shock and horror, the therapists on the show minimized and glossed over his clear denial, minimization, gaslighting, stonewalling, and downright derision of his wife. the show is called 'married at first sight', it's a new social experiment that matches "compatible" couples and marries them at first sight. can you please share thoughts on this, in a blog post?? i think it's so important that there are other experts voicing that these are CLEAR signs of abuse. the experts on the show are a psychologist, sociologist, sex therapist, and spiritual adviser. it's an important show, but i was disturbed by this.

link to the episode: http://www.aetv.com/married-at-first-sight/video/conflict

hi dr. bancroft - i just read your book and found myself watching a reality show about married couples where the signs of an abusive husband came out. to my shock and horror, the therapists on the show minimized and glossed over his clear denial, minimization, gaslighting, stonewalling, and downright derision of his wife. the show is called 'married at first sight', it's a new social experiment that matches "compatible" couples and marries them at first sight. can you please share thoughts on this, in a blog post?? i think it's so important that there are other experts voicing that these are CLEAR signs of abuse. the experts on the show are a psychologist, sociologist, sex therapist, and spiritual adviser. it's an important show, but i was disturbed by this.

link to the episode: http://www.aetv.com/married-at-first-sight/video/conflict

Hello,I am so torn. My bf has accused me of doing this to him. I am not attempting to keep him up. We only get to see each other at night and he is usually OK having a discussion until he does not like what he hears and then he screams at me and tells me I am abusing him. I have tried to go into the living room and sleep on the sofa to let him sleep and discuss how he is very mean to me at another time, but he then follows me out and yells more.I'm so confused. Most of the talks are about how he will say very cutting comments out of nowhere. He says he was never abusive or mean before this and that everyone thinks he is the "nice funny guy." Am I causing this?Thank you

Lack of sleep is not an excuse to mistreat people. He alone is responsible for his words and actions. Abusive men are master manipulators, don't let what others think of him cause you to doubt your own experiences.

Hello! Thanks a lot for your books from Russia, because in our country women haven't got protection from law, there are no reabilitation programms like yours. Yor book is the only resource in ru-net that can really help us to inprove something (not just 1 of million advice but real resource). In russia women tell about your book on forums, in social media...you have done great job for Russia. To trust my words, check out the statistics of murders in our country, that were made by cruel husbands.

Thank you Terry M. That really helps. I left about two months ago and I still feel so small and worthless. I left feeling like such a bad person. He insisted it was normal to treat me like that and that I was the mean one for calling him out.

I just wanted to share a link to our blog. It's for survivors of DV who still unfortunately have to have contact with the perpetrator in some way, due to having children together. It is written by a small group of survivors who are also in this situation and have many year's experience of their ongoing tactics and the stress involved.

We write about common tactics, and also have tips and ideas for helping you and your child/ren through what is a very difficult situation. Hopefully providing support and a feeling that you are not alone.

The blog is here: https://domesticabuse2016.wordpress.com/

Please feel free to share via social media or to anybody that you think might find it useful.

understanding the need to have control over another makes a person feel more powerful and that it isn't love,i read some of Why does he do that. its so frustrating when he started calling me controlling, but it didn't stop there.

I went back to him. didn't do what he wanted me to do, I didn't want to be intimate with him. to my horror he came up from behind me and pulled my hair so hard I flew back into him and scratched his eye. so with a closed fist he punched me in my eye, held me down with both his arms and strangled me until was gasping for air. injuring my vocal cords for life!

Just found this blog. *tenderly applies a gold sticker star to your face* It always gives me hope when men actually look at what women face and all the pervasive forces that try to make them just lie down and let others stomp on them and even sort of Get It.

Also: Can I still do Wendi G. any good? That prick of a judge does *not* deserve any kind of tenure.